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The Chapel Hill Shooting Was Anything but a Dispute Over Parking

The shooting deaths of three Muslim university students last week in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, has ignited a firestorm of debate about the killer’s motives…

….But could it be, some are asking, that Hicks simply snapped? That this was not a hate crime motivated by underlying anti-Muslim animus, but rather was the tragic ending to a simple misunderstanding over noisy neighbors who parked in the wrong space?

The idea that a parking dispute would trigger such senseless violence isn’t farfetched in today’s America. But bringing up things like “parking disputes” in order to avoid conversations about deep-seated prejudices isn’t unheard of, either. In fact, “parking concerns” are a pretext that seems to plague the American Muslim community, especially when mosques are involved.

In November, residents of Des Plaines, Illinois, packed a city council meeting to express their annoyance over a local mosque’s plans to expand its parking lot.

1) Started with a description of the crime2) Mentioned the parking lot dispute3) Immediately launched into a description of unrelated complaints about parking disputes involving Muslims4) Segued into general complaints about how awful life is for American Muslims5) Concluded it must be a “hate crime” and thus the parking lot dispute is not true6) Ended up talking about “social cancer”